There was snow that afternoon covering the road
which twisted toward the secret
of water, the mysterious surge
of sludge & loam, the living
Mississippi, unlike the rest of the Midwest,
drawing itself through landscape. There was an appointment
you were keeping
in Moline: a cheap hotel, booze, a little blow. On the Lower
East Side, a woman
spills her martini, makes a gesture
like erasure, or regret. It was almost Christmas.
In the rear view
suddenly, the car you will always describe as oncoming
must have slipped into a skid
and now, rising up over the bank,
it startles you—that reflection. In Moline
the maid corners the bed, straightens the clean
line of sheet. Almost Christmas. On the road,
swirls of snow. On the road
the car hovering behind you, a witness,
unfortunate & so unlike the audience permitted
the distance of fictions, the artifice
of plot. And worse, of course, the law
of cause & effect: I looked up,
it started to fall. You must attach
subject to verb, must say
I saw, and did, in your rear view, the car you’d thought
nothing of,
the gray sedan lifting slowly from the common snow,
turning, and the accident
always there, about to happen.

Poet:Kate NorthropPoem: Iowa & Other Accidents
Volume:Back Through InterruptionYear: Published/Written in 2002
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